


Swimming Round in My Blood

by lubilu17



Series: I got Sunshine up on the Shelf [3]
Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hélène Centric, I honestly only think I can write angst, at least that’s what I can write well, implied eating disorder, implied suicide, slight self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 20:49:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12825798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lubilu17/pseuds/lubilu17
Summary: It was supposed to be a good night. It was a good night. It had been perfect. Until now.





	Swimming Round in My Blood

**Author's Note:**

> K so please read the trigger warnings in the tags bc like your mental health is way more important than my fics.
> 
> But aside from that enjoy.

It was supposed to be a good night. It was a good night. It had been perfect. They’d been for a meal together, then to the theatre to see something that one of Hélène’s friends was in. They’d both looked beautiful, and if it was possible Hélène had fallen even more in love with Marya than she already was. Their meal had been perfect, they’d laughed together over dishes of past and glasses of champagne. It had been perfect. Until now.

Until Marya was softly sleeping in their bed, with her deep red hair splayed out on the pillow like a halo, the remnants of the days makeup smeared slightly under her eyes. In Hélène’s opinion Marya never looked more angelic than when she was asleep. It had been perfect until Marya had fallen asleep and left Hélène alone with her thoughts and their full length mirror at the end of their bed. Left her alone in the darkness.

The darkness held demons that tried to grab at Hélène’s soul and rip it apart anytime she was alone. They ripped at her heart and her brain, pulling apart any kind of insecurity that Hélène could have about herself and her relationships. Sometimes these demons had faces, there was one that came up regularly that had a face, a familiar face that she’d not seen for years, her mother. The demons skeletal hands would rip at her skin until it itched at her wrists, her thighs, her neck. The demons would rip at her skin and she’d replicate their wounds with her own fingernails, leaving deep red scratches across her skin.

It was the demon with her mother’s face that came at her now, clawing away at her in the darkness, reminding her that she’d never be perfect. That no one could ever truly want her. That she’d always be the same person she used to be inside now matter how much she changed herself. Her face in the mirror at the end of their bed didn’t show Hélène’s face, it never did in the darkness, it always showed her mother’s. Her mother who looked so alike Hélène that her father after enough to drink would call her her others name with tears in his eyes. Her mother who strived so much for perfection in her life and the only way she found it was in her death.

As she stared at herself in the mirror she hadn’t realised that she’d been absentmindedly running her nail across her skin, leaving red streaks down her arms and around her neck. Realising her mistake she began to rub at the marks, as if that would get the scratches to leave. She needed to get them off, to remain perfect, untouched. For Marya, for herself, for her mother’s memory. Marya would never want someone like Hélène. Could never want someone like Hélène. Nobody would want to even see her if she wasn’t perfect. She needed to be completely perfect.

Even hours after the meal that they’d eaten together Hélène could feel the weight of the food in her stomach, she fights the urge to run to the bathroom and throw the entire meal up. But that’ll wake Marya up and then the older woman will see how imperfect Hélène really is, how much she failed her mother. She fights the urge to run to the bathroom but that doesn’t stop her from still feeling queasy, even though deep down she knows that it won’t really help. It didn’t help before. Except it did help, it brought her closer to the icy perfection her mother always strived to get to. It make her get closer to what her mother always wanted from her.

Maybe that was the problem, that she just wasn’t trying hard enough. That everybody could see through her mask of bravado and see how broken she truly was on the inside, see all the marks the demons had left on her soul. Anatole had perfected his mask, his mask of joy and little care for anything in life, when Hélène and Fedya had seen his vulnerability that showed itself every so often. Ippolit had never needed a mask, people just took him as he was, there’s not changing that, maybe it was that he just didn’t care. But Hélène, her mask was cracked around the edges of its lips, deep chasms running like smile lines across her face, some nights the cracks ran red with blood, others they ran clear with tears.

Her face and body is distorted in the mirror, she can feel everybody who’s ever touched her on her skin. She can feel Marya’s burning kiss, sweet, passionate, true. She can feel Pierre’s touches empty of love but full of tenderness. She can feel every nameless person in the darkness of clubs, in the safety of her bedroom, their marks, their possession of a woman they’re never going to meet again. She can feel them all, and they disgust her. Every mark burns on her skin, even though the majority of them have been gone years. It burns her as if someone’s held a lighter to her skin.

The tears that have been welling up in her eyes begin to fall as her chest heaves with a sob that she tries to stifle with her hand. The blurrier her vision gets the clearer the face in the mirror behind her gets, the face that still controls her every movement, her every thought. Even though her mother’s been dead for the majority of Hélène’s life she still watches over her daughters behaviour at every given opportunity. The face has Hélène’s skin, her hair, her eyes but it’s not her ever her. It’s the demon that haunts her, that tortures her every waking moment, that lingers after every comment.

Even her hand can’t restrain the sob that rips itself out of Hélène’s throat.

Her breath is laboured and there’s tears streaming down her face and she can’t control it anymore. She’s lost the control she’s been working so hard to keep. Her fingers scratch at her arms without thought and Hélène can’t find it in herself to care when she ends up with bits of skin and droplets of blood under her nails. She doesn’t know how long this goes on for until she feels another hand on top of hers, it could have been hours or it could have just been minutes. With blurred vision she turns to look at Marya, who at some point during all of this has woken up, and bursts into another set of sobs. She feels herself being pulled into Marya’s embrace, feels Marya’s hand in her hair, feels her other hand clasping Hélène’s own hands together as of to protect Hélène from herself.

Marya says nothing as she holds Hélène, lets her sob and shake in her arms, this has happened too often for Marya not to know what to do. She knows what demons crawl at Hélène in the night, she knows about Hélène’s dislike of taking any kind of pill, knows how much she hates being reminded of her mother, knows how much it all affects her. And for some reason she doesn’t run away like everyone else has.

She doesn’t run away, but she carefully guides Hélène into their bathroom, turning every light in the house on as they make their way through their apartment. She doesn’t say anything as she cleans up the marks on Hélène’s skin, she doesn’t have to. And Hélène doesn’t mention how she can feel strings moving her arms like a puppet, how she can see blood running down the strings, how she can feel the puppet master smiling down at her. Making her perfect. Making her clean again. Pure. Pure enough for Marya’s love.

There’s something in Marya’s smile that always makes Hélène melt a little inside, no matter how terrible she’s feeling. There’s something like guilt in the bottom of Hélène’s heart when she see Marya smile at her, when she looks at Hélène like she’s her entire world. Honestly Hélène’s not entirely sure why Marya would look like that at her, she’s nowhere near perfect, but she’s getting there.

As they make their way back to their bedroom, Hélène can’t help but notice all of the photos in their apartment are faced down, the ones with Andrey in being turned down Hélène can understand, it’s all still raw in everyone’s hearts. But the ones of Marya and Hélène being turned down she can’t understand, unless it’s Marya not wanting her to look at every tiny imperfection in the photographs.

Marya, the goddess that she is, lays Hélène’s head on her chest, strokes her hair until Hélène manages to fall asleep after over an hour of laboured breathing. She protects Hélène though the night from the demons that plague her in her sleep. And when she wakes in the morning there’s a tiny part of Hélène that thinks, that hopes that Marya will be the one to cut the puppet from its strings.


End file.
